In theory TitanCon is a 4-day convention. It started today and contines through to Sunday evening. However, the programming on Sunday consists entirely of a coach trip to Game of Thrones filming locations followed by a mediaeval banquet. Practically speaking, therefore, at least from my point of view, it is a 3-day convention followed by going out to dinner with a large group of friends.
Today was all about getting settled in. I did have one panel on small presses, but there was also getting registered and getting set up in the Dealers’ Room. My own books might be sold out, but I have a small number of Twelfth Planet books that I offered to take from Dublin to Belfast, and that I need to sell so that I don’t have to take them home and then to Glasgow for FantasyCon. Franceso Verso is once again giving me space on his table, and here we have more time to chat.
A lot of people have come from Dublin to Belfast, including a significant number of Americans. Goodness only knows what Ben Yalow will make of the ESFS Business Meeting. I’m kind of sad that he won’t get to experience Dave Lally chairing it.
Because I talk a lot about translations on panels, people occasionally give me books. Today I was given a copy of East of a Known Galaxy, an anthology of Romanian science fiction translated into English. My thanks are due to Darius Hupov who is the host of The Galactic Imaginarium, a science fiction podcast based in Romania.
Eurocon is very much a multi-cultural experience. Also today I got to chat with a French fan about translations from French to English, and to a couple of Estonian fans about my visit to their country this summer. I shared a dealer table with an Italian, and was on a panel with a publisher from Portugal. That sort of thing ought to happen at Worldcon, but it doesn’t. Eurocon is where that sort of inter-cultural mixing is commonplace.
I wouldn’t say cultural mixing doesn’t happen at Worldcons, but it’s less common. But in Dublin I spent an awesome panel-cum-group discussion about parents and children in fandom with a Maltese fan, a fan living in Turkey, several Israeli fans (including a grandmother-of-fans), and an awesome Croation fan. Likewise the filk circles included people from all over the place, even if they weren’t as extremely multilingual as some of the circles in Helsinki.
I think there are several reasons why this is so, but I think the sheer size of Worldcons and the dominance of Anglophone fandoms make it harder to achieve there. But it’s not impossible.
It is that dominance of Anglophone fandom that does it for me. I’m always busy talking to people, and they are almost always native English speakers. Or it will be a bunch of Finns together. The difference I find at Eurocon is that the majority of conversations I have are with non-native English speakers, sometimes from several different countries in a group. I’m pleased it can happen at Worldcon, but at Eurocon it just happens all the time.